Если у вас возникли сложности с курсовой, контрольной, дипломной, рефератом, отчетом по практике, научно-исследовательской и любой другой работой - мы готовы помочь.
Предоплата всего
Подписываем
Lecture 6
Lexical units and lexical system
Plan
1. General information on lexical units
2. The notion of lexical system
The term unit means one of the elements into which a whole may be divided or analyzed and which possesses the basic properties of this whole. The units of a vocabulary or (lexical units) are two - facet elements possessing form and meaning. The basic unit forming the bulk of the vocabulary is the word. Other units are morphemes that is parts of words, into which words may be combined.
Words are the central elements of language system, they face both ways: they are the biggest units of morphology and the smallest of syntax, and what is more, they embody the main structural properties and functions of the language. Words can be separated in an utterance by other such units and can be used in isolation. Unlike words, morphemes cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units and are functioning in speech only as constituent parts of words.
Set expressions are word groups consisting of two or more words whose combination is integrated so that they are introduced in speech, so to say, ready-made as units with a specialized meaning of the whole that is not understood as a mere sum total of the meanings of the elements.
In the spelling system of the language words are the smallest units of written discourse: they are marked off by solid spelling.
Many authors devoted a good deal of space to discussing which of the two: the word or the morpheme is to be regarded as the basic unit. Many American linguists (Ch. Hockett or Z. Harris) segmented an utterance into morphemes ignoring words. Soviet lexicologists proceed from the assumption that it is the word that is the basic unit, especially as all branches of linguistic knowledge and all levels of language have the word as their focal point. A convincing argumentation and an exhaustive review of literature is offered by A.A. Ufimtseva (1980).
Orthographic words are written as a sequence of letters bounded by spaces on a page. Yet, there exist in the English vocabulary lexical units that are not identical with orthographic words but equivalent to them. Almost any part of speech contains units indivisible either syntactically or in terms of meaning, or both, but graphically divided. A good example is furnished by complex prepositions: along with, as far as, in spite of, due to.
The same point may be illustrated by phrasal verbs: bring up 'to educate', call on 'to visit', make up 'to apply cosmetics' and others. The semantic unity of these verbs is manifest (очевиден) in the possibility to substitute them by orthographically single-word verbs. Though formally broken up, they function like words and they are integrated semantically so that their meaning cannot be inferred (заключен)from their constituent elements.
Some further examples are furnished by compound (выставлены составными) nouns. Sometimes they are not joined by solid spelling or hyphenatin (перенос) but written separately, although in all other respects they do not differ from similar one-word nominations. E.g. terms lieutenant-commander and lieutenant-colonel are hyphenated whereas wing commander and flight lieutenant are written separately. Or all right and alltogether, never mind and nevertheless.
All these are, if not words, then at least word equivalents because they are indivisible and fulfill the nominative, significative, communicative and pragmatic functions just as words do.
To sum up: the vocabulary of a language is not homogeneous (однородный). If we view it as a kind of field we shall see that its bulk (масса), its central part is formed by lexical units possessing all the distinctive features of words, e.g. semantic, orthographic and morphological integrity as well as the capacity of being used in speech in isolation. Thus, phrasal verbs, complex prepositions, some compounds, phraseological units etc. are divided in spelling but are in all other respects equivalent to words. Morphemes, on the other hand, a much smaller subset (подмножество) of the vocabulary, cannot be used as separate utterances and are less autonomous.
Lexicology studies the recurrent patterns of semantic relationships, and of any formal phonological, morphological or contextual means by which they may br rendered. It aims systematization.
The system denotes a set of elements associated and functioning together acc. to certain laws. The vocabulary of a language is moreover an adaptive system constantly adjusting itself to the changing requirements and conditions of human communications and cultural surroundings.
The study of lexical system must include the study of the words' combinatorial possibilities - their capacity to combine with one another in groups of certain patterns which serve to identify meanings.
Paradigmatic relationships being on the linear character of speech are studied by means of contextual, distributional, transformational and some other types of analysis.
Paradigmatic linguistic relationships determining the vocabulary system are based on the interdependence of words within the vocabulary ( synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy- the relationship between a specific word and a general word when the former is included within the latter.
That relationship is illustrated by the common formula "An A is a kind of B." For example, "A dog is a kind of animal," or simply "A dog is an animal." The specific word, "dog," which is included within, or under, the general word, is known as a hyponym (Greek "under" + "name"). The general word, "animal," which heads a list of many specific words under it, is a hypernym (Greek "above" + "name"). In this case, those other specific words, or hyponyms, could include, besides "dog," a vast number of other animal names, such as "bird," "horse," and "monkey." etc.).